corniest selection on the ringer's "40 best songs of 1999"

it's a total fantasy rip and it still slaps

xp

I thought it wsd best songs also Shania is great gtf

Yeah I love that Shania song.

when i was a 9-year-old in 1999, i have to say my least favorite one of these was cher's 'believe,' but i've come around on that one a bit. not to liking it, but to appreciating it as cheese and a pretty good choice for karaoke.

it's also kinda mind-boggling how huge that song was, considering cher hadn't topped the charts since 1973.

I just relistened to "Believe" and holy cow it does not sound as good as I remember

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMY0k0-D9JQ

The "Dance!" moment in the sunscreen song is as good a contender for corniness circa '99 as any.

I just relistened to "Believe" and holy cow it does not sound as good as I remember

How good did you remember it sounding?

A low moment in my psychic history was hearing "Believe" for the first time and thinking "it's too bad Cher could never have a hit today, even when she's trying really really hard to." Not only was I wrong, but then I had to listen to the song day in, day out for a half-year.

After some thought I really don't see how this can't be "Summer Girls" - just excruciating to listen to, then & now.

this was my first thought, there's something so cynical about that song, the first boy band tune that felt like a straight cash-in

but then I saw "God Must've Spent a Little More Time on You" which must've come out the summer of '99 because I remember that tune being #1 on TRL like every single day...corniness is basically that tune's only trait. it sounds like something that would've come from one of those manufactured bands on the Disney channel, with all those little *doink* noises everywhere

i love "believe"

also this was the year I turned 13 so the videos for "What's It Gonna Be?", "That Don't Impress Me Much", and to a lesser extent "Steal My Sunshine" were iconic to me for a different reason

Just learned that the Buffy episode that clowns so hard on Believe was released a week before the single even came out.

https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/Living_Conditions October 12, 1999
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believe_(Cher_song) October 19, 1998

Oh fuck. nevermind

lol

Mobb Deep - "Quiet Storm" is great and weirdly out of character for this list

OK lol I actually pressed play on frogbs's video.

xp Deeply out of character.

No Sandstorm no credibility.

believe is amazing

voting for red hot chili peppers, the corniest artists itt

they might be, but i don't think "scar tissue" is v corny

'Thong Song' is the corniest (if 'corny' means "closest to '99 and the song got stuck in '99").

Len and TLC are the best.

there was something weird going on with the music videos at the time, I remember watching a ton of them on MTV back then and like half of them were set on some crazy spaceship with the singers appearing in skintight outfits straight out of the original Star Trek. maybe it was just a side effect of CGI getting a little better (lmao) but I'm kind of curious how this started. was it Michael Jackson?

len, juvenile, new radicals, and sisqo are all timers for me

yah those plus odb and fiona are my faves

frogbs, i mean, it was the era of X-Files, Y2k tension, the Matrix, WTO protests, disillusionment with govt w/r/t Lewinsky stuff, conspiracy theory, David Icke, Behold a Pale Horse... it's not a stretch that music videos are gonna look that way

while you are considering what to vote for:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdKTx-8EvtM

Scar Tissue is corny af and it's only the presence of Tender than prevented me from voting for it.

most of these songs are really good but as a whole this list is basic as fuck so who the fuck cares

1. Britney Spears - Baby One More Time
2. TLC - No Scrubs
3. Mariah Carey - Heartbreaker ft. Jay-Z
4. Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
5. Len - Steal My Sunshine

Breaking some new ground with this unusual yet intriguing top 5.

Baby One More Time is from 1998.

Can't wait for their top 40 albums of 1999 topped by "Now 3" and "Now 2."

their album list is a bit more interesting

citizen king - better days reminds me of a mix cd they gave out at aeropostale if you bought enough cargo shorts and puka shell necklaces or something. wish i could find a tracklist. think "hooch" by everything was on there. the blue monday cover by orgy was definitely on there.

'steal my sunshine' dude employs a weird loud whisper affectation that is my most hated vocal performance ever. so voting for that.

its fun to imitate though

there was a time when I was kinda curious what other songs by Len sounded like. not anymore, oh well

I checked out the album once, I think the rest of the tracks were mainly skate-punk or something like that.

ftr "Heartbreaker" fucking sucks

'steal my sunshine' dude employs a weird loud whisper affectation that is my most hated vocal performance ever. so voting for that.

― triple-washed (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, July 31, 2019 3:21 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is soooooo otm, such an awful delivery that ruins an otherwise beautiful song.

anyone have an 'instrumental' version that just cuts his vox?

it's the b-side on the "california realin' remix" single

What was that thread, from a year or so back, where we were obsessing over a sub-genre of "pop songs with breakbeats" from this era?

'scar tissue' makes me squirm. the lyrics are embarrassing, dave matthews-grade j/o. the narrative behind the album and rhcp's ascent to wise rock survivors makes me want to barf. rhcp is like the ultimate example of the kind of band that a certain person will be like 'this band is good and i will listen to them, most of my musical opinions are contrarian and turgid' about. their boring respectability now is just so goddamn mindless considering their songs have never not been like 80% repellent with lyrics that can't stay away from being gross and can't say anything interesting or appealing even in their "mature" phase. i mean feel free to point to counter-examples anyone, i will nod and appreciate your deep listening drive and generosity of spirit, but i'm not going to follow you there lol.

feel like hating rhcp is way more acceptable than liking them

tbf most of my musical opinions are contrarian and turgid

xp haha i think that depends a lot on where a person lives

Rhcp, green day, and foo fighters all feel like the last generation that worked at rock inc. before the company went outta business so they get remembered as members of The Greats simply by outliving everyone

ftr "Heartbreaker" fucking sucks

The girl at the student house next to mine played Californication on repeat for the entire summer of 2000, and very loud too, I hate that fucking album more than I can say

very loud too

this is just the natural volume of californication

I've read quite a bit about it being the ultimate example of a victim of the loudness wars, doesn't make me hate it any less tbh.